The investigations, in which an amorphous hydrogenized silicon film is used in photoelectric conversion devices such as solar cells, optical sensors, electrohotographic sensitive members, imaging elements and thin film transistor arrays, have been carried out. However, although an amorphous hydrogenized silicon film is suitably used for photoelectric conversion devices, it has a problem in durability when it is used in such devices that are used under the severe condition, for example solar cells for electric power and electrophotographic sensitive members for use in ultra-high speed copying since an amorphous hydrogenized silicon film is not in a state of thermal equilibrium and turned into a state stable in structure when it receives an external thermal energy and optical energy.
On the contrary, it has been believed that an amorphous fluorinated silicon film is superior to an amorphous hydrogenized silicon film in stability, whereby capable of being used in photoelectric conversion devices requiring high durability under the severe condition more satisfactorily than an amorphous hydrogenized silicon film since fluorine is a monovalent element and finishes a dangling bond alike to hydrogen, the bond energy between a silicon atom and a fluorine atom being larger than that between a silicon atom and a hydrogen atom.
An electrophotographic sensitive member using an amorphous fluorinated silicon film as a photoconductive layer requires excellent photosensitive characteristics and dark resistance of 10.sup.13 .OMEGA..cm or more. But the photosensitive characteristics and dark resistance of an amorphous fluorinated silicon film formed by a flow discharge decomposition method are dependent upon various kinds of discharge condition such as a reaction pressure and a high-frequency electric power, whereby it has been difficult for said photosensitive member to exhibit an excellent effect all over electrophotographic characteristics.
Furthermore, in order to form an amorphous fluorinated silicon film photoconductive layer having excellent photosensitive characteristics and dark resistance with high reproducibility under the stabilized condition, the present invention provides an electrophotographic sensitive member comprising a hydrogen and fluorine containing amorphous silicon photoconductive layer having an absorption coefficient ratio of the peaks of 827 cm.sup.-1 `to 1015 cm.sup.-1 in an infrared absorption spectrum of 1.3 or more.